Zoya Pirzad

Zoya Pirzad, an Iranian-Armenian writer and translator, was born in 1331 in Abadan. Her experience of growing up in Abadan’s multicultural environment, among Armenian families and oil-industry workers, later found reflection in the fictional worlds of some of her most important works.

She began her literary career through translation and short fiction. In 1370, 1376, and 1377, she published the short-story collections Like Every Evening, The Acrid Taste of Persimmon, and A Day Before Easter. The Acrid Taste of Persimmon was recognized at the Twenty Years of Iranian Fiction Festival.

Pirzad’s first full-length novel, Things We Left Unsaid, was published in 1380 and established her position in contemporary Iranian fiction. Set in Abadan in the 1960s, the novel follows Clarice, an Armenian housewife, and portrays the tension between family obligations, individual desires, and the monotony of everyday life. The book earned Pirzad the Houshang Golshiri Foundation Award, the Mehregan Adab Award, and Iran’s Book of the Year Award.

Pirzad’s fiction is distinguished by its lucid prose, close attention to the details of ordinary life, focus on women’s inner worlds, and portrayal of family relationships. Through everyday gestures, silences, and conversations, she reveals emotional and social tensions. She has also translated works including Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Sound of a Frog Jumping, a collection of haiku by Asian poets. Her fiction has been translated into several languages, including French.